Star Fighter Battle - Full Thrust Style

I just found a set of rules I want to try out for starfighter minis - particularly the Star Wars fighters I have available to me. What has me most pleasantly impressed is that they are based on the Full Thrust system, which I am somewhat familiar with having played the fighting sail off-shoot, Full Sail. Now, this rule set doesn't seem to have an official name, but it is found at this link (choose the Keith Jordan set), along with a bunch of other Full Thrust related stuff!

I dug out four A-wings and six TIE fighters for a simple skirmish.

The Battle

I think this is more or less how I set up a similar scenario to try out the Silent Death rules. Both sides are travelling with velocity 6.

The contestants close for battle!

I think the camera is catching up to the massive amount of acceleration as the A-wings and TIEs come at each other head on. Of all the shots fired, only the one TIE fighter was hit.

Every one flies past each other and nobody is in anybody's sights.

But the A-wings are able to come about to take some shots at one of the Imperial fighter groups, scoring some hits with each shot.

Again, no shots fired as the fighter groups try to gain favourable positions.

All fighters at this point have decelerated in order to make tighter turns. Some real damage is done to one of the TIE fighters as it has to make a threshold check and it loses fire control and both engines. One of the A-wings receives a hit, but it's minor.

TIE fighters in score some hits, but nothing major. And only one hit on that defenseless TIE as the other A-wing group avoids his wingmen.

Another all-too-brief respite with no-one in position to fire.

The Rebels catch two TIEs in an inescapable arc of fire and, through a series of lucky rolls, manage to eliminate one and severely damage the other, leaving him just one HP away from exploding, one laser cannon inoperable and one engine dead. He uses what control he has left to flee the battle. Meanwhile his remaining wingman on the far right will drift off the battle area after three unsuccessful attempts at damage control.

With one TIE squadron broken up and running, the other Imperials turn in for revenge. The targeted A-wing at the bottom of the image lost its shields and fire control system.

Oops, forgot to indicate hits on those A-wings.

A picture missing here, but no worries, not much happened!
But then:

Final round of fire sees two A-wings and two TIE fighters eliminated!

The last Imperial pilot in the battle decides to head for home as fast as he can, increasing velocity to the maximum gets him just out of range of the Rebel ships. This dogfight is over. 

The winner? Tough to say. Both sides lost 50% of their fighters. I guess I could say the Rebels win it by forcing the retreat of Imperial fighters by loss of control (thrust points).

Final Thoughts

Like I said, I'm already somewhat familiar with the Full Thrust ruleset, so outside of the changes made specifically for dogfights, I spent very little time in the rules. I could have streamlined turns by measuring movement for squadron leaders, then moving wingmen into formation positions, instead of measuring movement for each fighter individually as I did.

I did misunderstand the rules for dice rolled when firing for the first few turns. Don't know if it would have affected the outcome much. Fighters seemed to disappear quicker once I started playing it correctly. Another thing I may or may not have done correctly is to carry over the turning rule I am used to from Full Sail, that being to make a 30 degree turn takes 2 thrust points. Still think it worked well this way regardless. I guess I should still try out one thrust point per 30 degree turn, which would give the A-wing the possibility of a 270 degree turn in one move. Maybe a minimum speed should be required; one MU per 30 degrees.

I was also wondering if I had balanced the opposing forces well enough. The A-wings have more HP, shields, and an extra thrust point when engines are fully functional. This outcome would suggest that a 3:2 ratio is a close match, at least with A-wings and common TIE fighters. Though, probably would have been different had I played with rotating guns on the A-wings, which comes up in the Star Wars lore and in the Silent Death: Star Wars rules, which I might write a comparison about since I keep thinking about the differences between the two rule sets.

My son (6) came in during the last couple of moves and was very interested in the game. I'm thinking next time I'll try teaching him the rules. Should be simple enough for him to grasp, I think.

Update:

Due to feedback received, here are the SSDs I used:

These come with the rules modification document at the link provided above at the start of the post. It also includes SSDs for the X-wing, Y-wing, B-wing, Millennium Falcon, TIE Interceptor, TIE bomber, Lambda shuttle, Slave-1, TIE Advanced, and a stock freighter. Also included is a Cylon fighter.
Actually, the download does not include the SSD for the vanilla TIE fighter, so I altered the TIE Interceptor to create one. Also, the images come in .sh2 format, but a google search will yield links to online converters.
To download right now: Fighter Rules and records sheets for FT